Relevance of autopsy in nursing education - a view from inside

Aim. Identify nursing students' opinion about the autopsy in terms of the utility of autopsy for the progress of medicine and society and the relationship with the religious and personal beliefs. Material and methods. A number of 66 nursing students enrolled at the "Grigore T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi, Romania, in the 4th year of study were involved in the research. After signing the informed consent sheet, the students were asked to answer to a questionnaire with 18 items evaluated with a Likert-like scale with six answers and to complete a data sheet with socio-demographic information. The statistical analysis was realized using IBM SPSS Statistic, version 23. Results. More than half of nursing students totally agreed that the autopsy is useful for the society and 48.48% for the progress of the science of medicine. 18.18% considered that nursing students should not be asked to practice the autopsy. More than one third of them declared that autopsy changed their views about nurse's clinical activity and more than half of the questioned subjects would agree to an autopsy for themselves or for a close relative in case of a misunderstanding about the cause of death. Conclusions. The importance of autopsy for the medical formation of students was identified, as long with the impact of practicing on the future choice of working in a specific medical specialty.